Digital Legacy and many of the areas we will be addressing would have been seen as Science-Fiction 10 years ago. There always has been a symbiotic between technology and fiction and this is certainly the case when it comes to death and technology.

Comic-Con London will be taking place between the 22nd-24th May in Excel London. We would like to open our invitation to any attendees of Comic-Con who find digital legacy (and such matters) interesting to come along. There is no dress code and we welcome diversity across different genders, education, races, walks of life and comic-book alliances.

Facebook have introduced a new feature that lets people choose a legacy contact—a family member or friend who can manage their account when they pass away. The legacy contact will be able to:

Write a post to display at the top of the memorialized Timeline (for example, to announce a memorial service or share a special message)

Respond to new friend requests from family members and friends who were not yet connected on Facebook

Update the profile picture and cover photo

If someone chooses, they may give their legacy contact permission to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information they shared on Facebook. Other settings will remain the same as before the account was memorialized. The legacy contact will not be able to log in as the person who passed away or see that person’s private messages.

Alternatively, people can let Facebook know if they’d prefer to have their Facebook account permanently deleted after death.

Here’s how to choose a legacy contact:

Open your settings. Choose Security and then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page.

After choosing your legacy contact, you’ll have the option to send a message to that person.

You may give your legacy contact permission to download an archive of the posts, photos and profile info you’ve shared on Facebook.

Facebook have also redesigned memorialized profiles to pay tribute to the deceased by adding “Remembering” above their name and making it possible for their legacy contact to pin a post to the top of their Timeline.

Facebook are introducing legacy contacts in the US first but it will be rolled out in the UK soon. This article was sourced from Facebook’s newsroom

The former employee of a Fox affiliate in Texas committed suicide outside Fox News headquarters, blaming the network for ruining his life. He claimed he was fired over a “sensational” Facebook post about the Austin police chief.

The man, identified as Phillip Perea, handed out fliers in front of News Corporation headquarters Monday morning that said his former employer had “ended my career” and that the news channel had ruined his life, a police official told the Wall Street Journal. The 41-year-old had previously worked at a Fox affiliate in Austin, Texas.

About an hour before his death, Perea tweeted criticisms of his former employer, and linking to one of his 35 YouTube videos railing against Fox News.The videos in ‘The American Workplace Bully: How FOX News Ended My Career’ playlist “paint the picture of a disgruntled former employee who he believes was outed as part of a master plot against him,” AOL News reported.

The eight-minute video Perea linked to in his last tweet laid out his complaints against the channel, which he believed unjustly fired him over a promotional Facebook post. Perea was a promotion producer at Fox affiliate KTBC, and teased a story on Facebook in February involving a viral video of the arrest of a jogging jaywalker.

Jogger Amanda Jo Stephen was wearing headphones when Austin police stopped her for jaywalking. They demanded she provide identification, which she wasn’t carrying. A nearby student videotaped her arrest, and the footage quickly went viral. Afterwards, at an unrelated press conference, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said, “Cops are actually committing sexual assaults on duty so I thank God that this is what passes for a controversy in Austin, Texas.”

In the Facebook post, Perea combined a picture of Stephen crying with a photo of Acevedo reacting to questions about the viral video.

Perea’s bosses at the station thought the photo of Acevedo was “more sensational than informative” ‒ in part because the police chief didn’t like the image, the Austin Chronicle reported. They also believed that Acevedo hadn’t agreed to an individualized interview with Fox since Perea posted the photo, which KTBC had deleted.

“He was so offended by that, that we’re on the outs,” KTBC Vice Presi­dent and General Manager (as identified by Perea) apparently told Perea in a recorded conversation. “He won’t come on our station anymore.”

Lewis said that Acevedo was letting Fox sit in and record group media interviews, but avoiding one-on-ones – and added that the photo had made Acevedo “look like a buffoon.”

The producer was set to be suspended three months later due to the incident, as well as alleged inappropriate behavior and an alleged general inability to follow directions, according to the Chronicle.

Perea was fired in June, according to a statement by Fox Television Stations. The first video in the playlist was published July 2. The YouTube videos include secretly recorded conversations with Lewis saying that other employees “feared” Perea and that he made them uncomfortable, according to the Daily Kos. He was ultimately fired for “unprofessional behavior,” though he believed it was actually because of the conflict over the Acevedo Facebook post.

We have opened out call for industry professionals and thought leaders around the subjects of digital death and digital legacy. Please get in touch if you are interested presenting with an outline of your experience and the subject matter you plan to address.

…More information coming soon

The Digital Legacy Conference is ran by the Digital Legacy Association. The Digital Legacy Association is the professional body dedicated to raising the quality of end of life care in all areas relating to digital asset and digital legacy. Our mission is to help ensure that everyone’s end of life wishes are met both in the real world and the digital realm. We do this by supporting the general public and by developing standards, frameworks and toolkits with charities and organisations that address end of life.